Kia ora whanau o Waitaki

What an incredibly exciting start to Term Two it has been. In Week One we celebrated our Anzac Day service and this was another special event. My highlights were the addresses from Morley Donaldson and Rosemary Mannering. Morley was at school from 1944 to 1948, in which year he was a school prefect. Incredibly, he was at the Milner Park grandstand the day Frank Milner collapsed and died. The Hall of Memories was only 17 years old when he first stood inside – now it is in it’s 94th year! Morley still sang the school song with the gusto of his youth – what an inspiration! Our guest speaker was Rosemary Mannering and she ‘brought to life’ the story of her father Stuart Corson who attended WBHS in was killed in 1943. She was only 15 months old when he was killed and never met Stewart. Her recollections came from letters sent to her mother and her mother’s stories. Rosemary’s two daughters Lucy and Wendy also attended. It was a very emotional story and truly befitting the occasion. Our current boys respect throughout the service was entirely appropriate. Another highlight was the firing of the 38mm artillery gun which was once kept here at school.

Later in the week we celebrated our summer ‘Red and Black’ awards. As always this served as a reminder of the amazing sporting and cultural talent we have amongst our young men here at Waitaki. We recognised national squad members, national bronze medallists along with several Otago representatives. On a sporting note it was wonderful to see the front fields ‘alive’ with activity throughout last Saturday as our Football and Rugby teams played against other schools from across Otago and South Canterbury. The level of parental support was outstanding.

On Wednesday of the first week of term we played King’s in our traditional interschool. As above, it was awesome to see over 300 young men from both schools competing across 15 different activities throughout the day. Although results didn’t go our way we were immensely proud of how all our teams played their ‘hearts out’ and were all ‘inspiring young men of outstanding character’. Congratulations to the senior Basketball, senior Badminton and junior Debating teams on their success.

Last Sunday we held our Don House ‘Open Day’ and there was a very positive uptake from perspective parents. At this stage we are optimistic that we will have another strong intake of boys into Don House for 2022.

Last Tuesday following our Teacher Only Day the first Whanau Hui in over five years was held in the Social Centre. Thanks to Nola Tipa from Ngai Tahu for organising this event. There were a good number of whanau present along with akonga and kaiako. We received some fantastic feedback, which we will be analysing in the near future with a view to presenting some action points in our next whanau hui towards the end of term. Today, a large group including our Kapa Haka group, key student leaders and staff have been at the Moeraki marae learning the new school haka. The plan is to disseminate this to the rest of the boys in order for it to be performed at the Scrano cultural evenings. These evenings have been pushed back a week to now be held from Wednesday 30th June to Friday 2nd July. This is in order for the boys to have an extra week to practice the new haka and the event will also flow nicely into our interschool week against St Kevin’s the following week.

Speaking of the Teacher Only Day. Staff had a very productive time last Tuesday. The focus of the day was really on two of the seven aspects of change to NCEA which will start to be implemented from 2023 and be embedded by 2025. The first focus was on Mana orite o te matauranga Maori which is essentially curriculum areas looking at delivering their curriculum in both a Maori and Pakeha context in order to give Te Ao Maori (the Maori world) the same status as the Pakeha world. The second focus was on the change to strengthen the Literacy and Numeracy standards and what these standards might look like. To achieve any level of NCEA a student must achieve both 10 credits of Literacy and 10 credits of Numeracy. These standards will sit separate to an NCEA course and can be achieved at any time throughout their secondary schooling.

Lastly, a reminder that this Thursday 20th May we have our Parent/Teacher interviews and school will be closed from 11.25 (boys are only required to attend Periods 1 and 2 that day). Interviews begin from midday. It is not too late to go on-line and make an appointment. We are extremely pleased that over 40% of families have already booked – this is well above the national average for these types of functions and is reflective of your engagement in your son’s education for which we are very grateful.

Thanks as always for your support of our wonderful school.

Inspiring young men of outstanding character.

Floreat Waitakia

Darryl Paterson